Screening and Q&A with hoaxer Joey Skaggs and director Andrea Marini.

"It's a fool who thinks he can't be fooled" Art of the Prank is a feature documentary about New York artist Joey Skaggs, the godfather of the media hoax. Famed for such media fictions as the Celebrity Sperm Bank, the Cathouse for Dogs, the Fat Squad, and Portofess (the mobile confessional booth), all reported as fact by prestigious journalists, he’s one of America’s greatest living satirists. When he decides to pull off the most demanding hoax of his career, filmmaker Andrea Marini gets a unique view into the mind of this most unconventional man.

Q&A with Andrea and Joey after the screening by Ine Poppe. Free of charge. Hot Soup and Beers can be ordered at the bar.

Joey Skaggs

Multimedia artist Joey Skaggs has been called everything from the World’s Greatest Hoaxer to a royal pain in the ass. He’s been threatened, assaulted, summonsed, subpoenaed, arrested, deposed, dismissed, trivialized, maligned, even thanked and praised. In fact, Skaggs is America’s most notorious socio-political satirist, media activist, culture jammer, hoaxer, and dedicated proponent of independent thinking and media literacy.

Art of the Prank

The resulting film is an emotional and humorous journey of will and determination following the evolution of an artist who has dedicated his life to seeking social change by relentlessly challenging the status quo. Filmed in New York, Connecticut, London, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Kentucky and Tennessee, and with unprecedented access to the man and his archives, the 82-minute documentary reveals the man behind the curtain, interweaving his current unfolding hoax with a look behind-the-scenes at some of his classic performance pieces.

Andrea Marini - Director/Editor/Producer

Andrea Marini was born in southern Tuscany in 1984. From a young age he has been passionate about movies, and began shooting his first amateur shorts. During High School he studied photography, cinema, advertising and graphic design, building his foundation in the visual arts and storytelling.

In 2004 he moved to Rome to study Film and Television in Cinecittà, determined to achieve the goal of being a film director. His professional career began in 2007 working mainly in advertising and directing music videos. In 2011 he completed the short film “the Noise of Snow” which has gone on to win multiple awards in several international Film Festivals. He continues to work in advertising, directing a wide range of different kind of ads, not only in terms of clients, but alsoconcerning the visual and narrative approach. From 2012 to 2015 he directed his first feature documentary film “Art of the Prank”, a documentary about the life of one of the greatest media pranksters of all times. On the other end he loves shooting stills, mostly on film, mostly street photography and portraits, he believes that this is a unique way to discover the world and human beings.

www.artoftheprank-themovie.com

Ine Poppe

Writer, teacher, journalist and artist Ine Poppe knew what she needed to do when she found out that Art of the Prank was not selected for the official IDFA selection: call Mediamatic to schedule a proper screening. After the screening she will take part in a Q&A with both Andrea and Joey.

Ine became internationally renowned for her project Moedermelkkaas, in the 80-ties. Poppe wrote the tv-script for Necrocam: death online, directed by Dana Nechustan. She made tv-programs and wrote scenario’s for computergames. Ine Poppe directed the documentary Hippies From Hell, about the group of hackers and activists that introduced the internet in the Nederlands and Them Fucking Robots about the Canadian robot artist Norman White. Poppe nowadays leads the Hacking department at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam, makes documentaires and contributes to transmedial projects. At the moment Ine prepares a documentary about her obsession: teeth in the broadest sense of the word.